Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Poor man's prosciutto follow up

I'd kind of given up on this poor bastard. I left in my chamber for months. I dipped it in the vinegar solution several times, as it had picked up some exterior mold. Every time I removed, it didn't seem to be making any progress. Being that it wasn't such a huge hunk of meat, I was confused. I removed everything from the chamber when I went on vacation. I couldn't leave anything due to me blowing my second humidifier in 6 months. Without a meatsitter changing the hanging wet rag every other day, everything would be rubbish. It sat in a regular refrigerator for a week, where I paid it no mind, actually mad at it for not curing :). Came home from vacation and put some things back in the chamber. I came to the ham and opened it. I finally said screw it, I'm going to cut into it. WOW, it looks perfect. I cut some up and chunked it to be fried up. I couldn't be happier, it's great. Suffice to say, I'm no longer cross with it! It is my opinion that if any of you who read this have any intention on making a prosciutto, I highly recomment starting with this. It doesn't even take one third of the time it would for a normal proscitto, and the taste is definitely a representative example of the vaunted cured meat. This revelation has led me down a new path. I am about to embark on a new endeavor.

Yessir! This is the same piece of meat from my post in April. It was a boneless piece of ham. It was cured with fresh thyme, fennel seed, ground coriander, fresh garlic and of course, salt, pepper, sugar, and cure #2.